No role for blue hydrogen in carbon-free future – US academics

Fugitive methane emissions and failure to capture all carbon emissions undermine case for blue hydrogen as a low-carbon fuel option

Blue hydrogen has no role to play in a carbon-free future because of the “quite high” greenhouse gas emissions released during its production, claims an academic paper published this week. Production of blue hydrogen, which uses natural gas coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS), creates a greenhouse gas footprint more than 20pc greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60pc greater than burning diesel oil for heat, according to the paper titled How green is blue hydrogen?, written by Robert Howarth of the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University and Mark Jacobson of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Stanford Univ